


Scatter like paper in the eye of the storm

by Dolorosa



Category: Romanitas - Sophia McDougall
Genre: Gen, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-04
Updated: 2019-12-04
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:40:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,795
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21669118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dolorosa/pseuds/Dolorosa
Summary: Una and Makaria negotiate the terms of their peace treaty.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 3
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	Scatter like paper in the eye of the storm

**Author's Note:**

  * For [a_la_grecque](https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_la_grecque/gifts).



Makaria

It was a sweltering summer's day when Noviana Una returned to Rome to make her formal surrender to Makaria. The air was humid, and the burning sky made the gleaming, sharp edges of the city's monumental buildings reflect almost painfully in the eye. Every rooftop and window was filled with curious onlookers, and crowds pushed their way into the streets, where they were herded behind barriers, cordoned off to a safe distance from proceedings by groups of harassed-looking vigiles. None of the city's inhabitants wanted to miss witnessing what was about to unfold.

Makaria, upright and crisp and formal in ceremonial dress that, while at least breathable in the heat, made movement awkward and uncomfortable, stood on the platform which had been assembled at the centre of Trajan's forum. She wished she were in Greece, or tucked away in the Imperial Office, or anywhere other than in front of this army of longvision recorders, waiting. She was flanked by a trio of senators who — while not exactly allies — understood the necessity of what she was about to do, and were prepared to persuade the waverers, and to justify the consequences. But even in their presence, and surrounded by the murmuring crowd of press, vigiles, and curious Roman onlookers, she felt as if she stood alone. She looked out across the forum, and tried not to squint in the sunlight.

All at once, the sounds from the crowd changed, shifting subtly from their directionless rumbling murmur into something more alert and focused. One of the vigiles assigned to prowl around Makaria's platform nudged his companion in what he clearly imagined to be an unobtrusive manner, gesturing towards the northwestern entrance to the forum, where the throng had parted. Una had arrived.

She had changed little in the year since Makaria had last seen her, still concealing her slim face behind a curtain of pale brown hair, still moving as if attempting to hide behind the empty air as she passed through it. Her clothes were unremarkable, functional, designed for blending in. In deference to the occasion she walked at the head of her little cohort of fellow revolutionaries, though Makaria knew that Una's true preference would have been to lurk in their midst — or dispense with this pageantry altogether. A hush fell over the crowd as Una drew closer to Makaria, the silence pierced by the whir of press spiras overhead, capturing events from the skies to beam across what remained of the Empire, and beyond.

She stopped before the platform, pushed her hair from her face, and spoke the careful phrase agreed upon: 'We surrender to you, Lady Novia, and seek to begin negotiations for terms of peace.' Una's voice was clear, and she kept her face upturned, her eyes never leaving Makaria's.

The next move was Makaria's to make, and she took a graceful step from the platform. Her actions were intended to look spontaneous and respectful, an impulsive decision to render herself Una's equal interlocutor, but were in reality planned in advance.

'I accept your surrender,' she said, 'and we are witnessed by the Senate —' here Makaria nodded at the three senators, who had moved to stand at her right, 'and the people of Rome.'

Here she made an expansive gesture towards the crowd. 'Their presence here demonstrates their acceptance of the terms of a lasting peace that provides justice for the many wrongs opposed by you and your cause.'

These ceremonial words spoken, the two women turned, and clasped hands, briefly, to symbolise their agreement, and the formal end of hostilities. The massed horde of witnesses, who had remained respectfully silence as Makaria and Una spoke, resumed their various conversations, the noise rising to a crescendo as people began to discuss the momentous events they had watched unfold. Flanked by the senators, vigiles, and Una's little group of revolutionaries, the two women made their way towards Marcus's statue, to sit side by side at the table which had been placed before it, and to sign the surrender documents which would provide a written record for the words they had just spoken into being.

Everything about this meeting — from its venue and timing to the identity and number of the individuals present — had been subject to extensive negotiations, exhaustive arguments, and thorough consideration. Nothing was left to chance, and every decision had been made on the basis of the meaning it would convey, and what it would be asked to justify. And while it might appear, on the outside, to represent the first contact between Una's revolutionaries and Rome as represented by Makaria, in reality both sides had been discussing and planning the entire event for months. What they were about to do was immense, and if they got things wrong, the consequences would be horrific.

*

Una

Una wondered who was the more relieved to have moved indoors — her or Makaria. Her skin felt prickly, as if the weight of expectation, the intensity of the gaze of the crowd and the insistent press of their thoughts had left a physical mark. She knew that their little display, out in the forum, in the sunshine, had been necessary, a public performance to lay the groundwork for what they were about to make reality behind closed doors. She could tolerate it, but she would never find it anything other than unpleasant. All those eyes upon her — and millions more, watching around the world, the longvision screens erected in public squares — and all their murmuring, fluttering thoughts, brushing up against her mind like swooping swallows. Una sensed them as an almost physical touch. It felt as if she were offering up herself and her cause for public consumption.

Makaria stood at the edge of the room, directing a cluster of servants — and here, Una felt a little flash of vicious pride ( _Paid servants, not slaves_ , she thought. _I did that._ ) — who were arranging chairs, tables, jugs of water, and various writing implements. The senators, their secretaries, and various other functionaries clustered around, shooting awkward looks at Una, Maralah, Lal, and Varius. Una waited until the room was prepared, taking steady breaths to calm herself, and prepare for what was to come. This next stage was a performance, too, although of a different kind to the display they had just put on outside, and it would be draining in a different way. When Una felt composed, she led her companions forward through the room, and they perched around the table, ready to begin.

*

'I'm sorry, but that's intolerable! Completely impossible!' spluttered Sergius, the oldest of the three senators, his voice shaking with outrage. 'It certainly wasn't something Lady Novia mentioned as being one of your demands, conveyed to us over the past few months.'

Maralah lost her temper completely. 'Intolerable is what we have been made to tolerate all our lives so far! Even now — forced to perform surrender to the Novians like some sort of grisly theatre before you'll even consent to give us what we asked for, and this after we ended the Nionian war for you! If anything, we're being restrained!'

Una placed a calming hand on her friend's shoulder. 'We knew this would be the biggest point of contention,' she said. 'We knew this would be their reaction, and we discussed how to respond. This is a negotiating table. We will negotiate.'

She sensed Makaria's approval without needing to hear her thoughts.

'Maralah,' said Makaria, 'no one is doubting the depths of what you have been forced to endure, nor the strength of feeling that led you, Una and the others to reactivate your network of abolitionists and start a revolution that stretched beyond the boundaries of the Empire. I will be the first to admit astonishment at how swiftly you persuaded so many to the justice of your cause, and how easily you were able to succeed, and sway popular opinion in your favour. But this is just one fragile moment, a careful dance we've all been doing, trying to find a way to give you what you want which will look as if it were a Roman victory, and make all free Romans feel good about themselves, as if this were what they had always wanted, forever.'

'And reparations are a step too far!' said Maralah, scornfully. Only Una could see how she twisted her hands nervously in her lap, the tension of the moment barely contained.

'Do you want slavery abolished throughout the Empire or not?' asked Sergius. 'Rome is on its knees coping with the cost of the last war, half the provinces of Africa have seceded and India looks likely to go the same way, and you and your fellow slaves have spent the last year destroying property, businesses, and kidnapping prominent officials! By some bizarre twist of fate your cause was viewed sympathetically, but the smallest thing could change that. Demands for reparations would mean higher taxes — on top of the additional taxes already levied to pay for the costs of the war. You will lose the support of the public in an instant if you ask for that.'

Una privately felt that Makaria had not wanted the Empire's problems laid out so starkly, and seized on the moment of discomfort created by Sergius's outburst to press for her preferred compromise. The difficulty lay in sounding sincere, when in her heart she knew Maralah's position was morally right. But Una knew, also, that they would get nowhere unless she made a display of making concessions.

'I want you to listen carefully to me, and consider what I'm about to say,' she said. 'Imagine all slaves were freed tomorrow, and instantly it became a crime to own another person and demand labour from them without payment, and a contract agreeing to the terms of their employment. Now imagine the slaveowning households and businesses you know — perhaps they are your own households and businesses, senators. Think of the array of slaves working in such places. Some are children. Some are frail, infirm, or elderly. Some may be young and healthy and capable, but may be uninterested in continuing to work for wages for those who previously exploited them. The former slaveowners profited and became rich from the work of slaves they did not need to pay. Are they going to want to begin paying all their former slaves? Would they even be financially capable of doing so?'

She could feel Varius nodding next to her. They had practiced this bit, arguing over exactly the right placement of words, trying to work out how to lead this little cluster of Romans to exactly the right conclusion, without anyone realising they were being led.

'You spoke before about the burden of higher taxes,' Una continued. 'Imagine the burden placed on the Roman treasury if all those former slaves were suddenly out of work, no longer being fed by the households and businesses that owned them, and homeless on the streets. We are not asking for reparations — no, Maralah, we are _not_. But we are asking that provision be made for every former slave put in this position: emergency housing, a pension, and assistance for every person trying to find paid employment after being freed. Possibly some kind of benefit paid to any business prepared to offer work — proper, fairly paid work — to former slaves. By rights we should be asking for reparations, but we will settle for these practical, forward-thinking steps being taken, and being codified into the peace agreement.'

And she sat back, and watched her words land, through the curtain of her hair.

Sergius, predictably, put up a token protest in the name of stability ('Lady Novia, you are already engaged in a trade negotiation with Nionia and discussions about the future relationship between Rome, the independent kingdom of Ethiopia, and the seceded Ethiopian province! How much more do you think the people will tolerate giving away?'), but his objections were short-lived, and Una knew she had got her way. The discussions continued in earnest, then, ranging from how to deal with any civil unrest instigated by elements unhappy at the loss of their slaves, to the logistics necessary to create identity documents for all the newly manumitted citizens, and replace the documents of former freed slaves — this category of person becoming, upon the abolition of slavery, nonexistent. She could sense Makaria thawing, warming to the task at hand, her pleasure at marshalling the prickly senators towards her preferred positions more apparent as the afternoon wore on. And, as the sun retreated, and the water on the table was replaced with wine and fruit, the shape of their agreement was formed.

*

Maralah

They went their separate ways after that — Una, Varius, Maralah and Lal to Varius's parents' house, to rest until their anxious hearts stopped beating, the senators back to their spacious city apartments, Makaria to the longvision studio to record the speech that would turn the words they had agreed to into law.

Lal wanted to celebrate, and had tried to drag them all out to the little taverna around the corner, but Una and Varius were exhausted, and Maralah couldn't bear to be among so many Romans, relaxed and rejoicing. That Lal would even suggest such a thing simply demonstrated her youth and idealism, Maralah felt, wondering, as she had since she'd rejoined Una's rebellion, why the young Persian girl had made the decision to attached herself to their cause. It was something to do with Una's brother Sulien, she knew, and a desire to assert herself in the face of her cautious family. She supposed they all had their reasons for making the choices they did, and who was she, Maralah, to resent another person who had helped them achieve their goal?

She could feel herself getting more and more tense, resentful and hostile in the face of Varius's parents' careful hospitality. It was as if the walls of the house were not wide enough to contain the force of her feelings. At the point at which someone switched on the longvision, so that they could witness Makaria's speech — the formulaic words and Novian glamour legitimising what had always been hers, and what she, and Una, and so many others had taken for themselves — she could stand no more, and fled to the roof of the house, to seek shelter under the unresponsive stars.

Her pulse raced, and she felt as if her bones were almost humming with contempt. She wanted this — oh, how she wanted it — but she didn't want it like this, handed out like a concession by a gracious Novian, glittering and golden with self-righteousness. Una — well, Una had kept the 'Noviana' in her name, and had her own complicated feelings about Novians, but even she must have found Makaria's speech difficult to swallow. Maralah was pragmatic enough to know that this was the only way they would have achieved their aim — a staged surrender and promise to damage no more Roman wealth and property, in exchange for abolition — but she was too full of blazing anger to muster the requisite gratitude. She supposed this was why Una had wanted her there in the negotiating room — to erupt in fury, so that Una could make her own demands, and look reasonable in comparison. She felt a rush of bitterness at being wielded like a weapon, at being _used_ , and then, as quickly as it started, her anger burned itself out. They had done it. What was she going to do next?

*

Noriko

Noriko had checked the time difference carefully several times before making the call, returning to her wall of clocks which showed the time in Nionia, western and eastern Tokogane, Goshu, Roman and independent Africa, Rome, and more. She knew she was merely stalling, delaying a task she knew was necessary but felt would be difficult: the time difference between Rome and her home country had been imprinted indelibly in her mind, during her marriage, those stark eight hours yet another reminder of the distance she'd come, how far she was from home. She knew if she delayed any further, it would be too late in Rome to speak at all, and so, eventually, she cleared the room of hovering advisors, and stared at the screen, waiting for the connection to be made.

Varius's mother answered, exclaiming in shock as always when she recognised the face of the Nionian princess and Novian widow, but after some fussing she brought Una to the screen.

'You saw Makaria's speech then, I assume?' said Una.

'In full,' Noriko replied. 'It was played in an edited version across the Nionian empire, but those of us in government were able to watch it in its entirety. I will never get used to you Romans, your imperial family allowing itself to be beamed around the world, showing their faces for all to see!'

'I'm not a Roman,' said Una, automatically, but Noriko could see the subtle confusion on her face.

'Although,' Una continued, 'I suppose now the law's changed I _am_ a Roman. We're all citizens. That's what Makaria said in her speech.' Her mouth twisted with distaste.

'I am glad for you, I think,' said Noriko, cautiously. 'I had no doubt you could gather an army and fight for your cause — I had seen what you could do — but I did not think you would win so quickly, or so completely. I thought Makaria was too overwhelmed with the other problems facing Rome to accept your demands.'

'The trade negotiations,' said Una. 'Someone told me you were leading them, that they put you in charge.'

'That's right,' said Noriko. 'Nobody knew what to do with me when I came back after the war, and no one really knew how to say no to me after what I had lived through, so there was no one to stop me when I brazened my way onto various committees and diplomatic meetings. Now they are pretending it was their decision all along.'

'It's strange what happens when you just decide that if no one else will do the right thing, it might as well be you,' said Una. 'How has Makaria's announcement been received in Nionia?'

'I do not yet know,' said Noriko. 'Of course, we have slavery here too, and I suppose this will add weight to the calls to abolish it. It would have happened eventually, but the war sped everything up. Empires are crumbling. Borders are opening up. Change is happening more quickly.'

She could sense others moving around in the room behind Una. Varius's parents, perhaps, clearing away the remains of a meal. Maralah, who she remembered from those horrible months after Marcus's death, and their flight from Rome, and Drusus. She felt, suddenly, as if she were intruding on something private, an unwanted guest at a Roman dinner party, and sought to end the conversation.

'Now that you have what you wanted, Una, what are you going to do next?'

'Rest!' shouted Varius's mother from across the room, amid much laughter.

Una didn't join in, although a brief smile cracked her face. 'I have thought of nothing beyond this day, this moment, for so long, fighting and working and carefully planning. There were so many things we had to balance and accept and compromise, just to get to this point. I don't know who I am without this cause. There's still so much to be done, but I don't know where to start. I cannot even begin to answer your question.'

Noriko nodded. 'Where do you go, after you remake the world?' she asked. She made her farewells to Una, touching the screen briefly, one last moment of connection before the young woman disappeared from view.

*

Una

It was late at night, and Una turned over and over in the bed. The sheet felt at once too heavy, and then too light. She was filled with an electric, restless energy. Varius lay beside her, the light from the street pooling above his closed eyes. The house was quiet and still.

It had been hours. Una gave up on sleeping, and slid from the bed, careful not to wake Varius, her feet silent on the cool tiles of the floor. She threw a wrap around her shoulders, and gathered shoes and warmer clothing, stepping quietly around the figures of Lal and Maralah, stretched out in the room she passed through on her way to the door.

The streets of Rome were empty at that hour, at least in the quarter in which Varius's parents lived. Other parts of the city would be alive with activity by this time — deliveries arriving at shops and market stalls, factory workers finishing or starting shifts, patrons staggering out of late night bars. Sulien's work sometimes brought him out of the house at this time of night. The thought of Sulien reminded Una she would have to try and see him the next day, once she had established exactly where in Rome he was living these days. She had kept in touch, as much as it was safe to do so, during her year leading the revolution, and had known he'd drifted in and out of the city, floating around the Empire, sometimes with Tancorix, sometimes without her, at home nowhere and everywhere.

Una's path was aimless, and she walked without purpose, beyond a wish to be away from people and the press of their thoughts and needs. The buildings she passed were dark, their inhabitants sleeping through those final strange hours of transition, in which Makaria had decreed slavery abolished throughout the Roman Empire, but before the sun rose on the new day in which that decree would become law. She did not know the district in which Varius's parents' house stood very well, but soon her journey took her to more familiar haunts, and she found herself recognising buildings, shops, and shrines in spite of herself.

Her footsteps had carried her to the crest of one of Rome's many hills, and she paused, looking down across the curve of the road, with the sweep of the city before her. The Golden House loomed, scarred and repaired like one of those Nionian bowls Noriko had shown her — cracked and seamed with threads of gold — a Novian monument lurching skywards at the heart of the sleeping city. The old stones of the buildings around her had retained the heat of the baking summer sun, and Una pressed her hand against them, feeling the warmth seep beneath her skin. After so many years of rushing from place to place in frantic flight, she was still.

The first reddish flush of dawn pierced the sky, and Una stood for a long time, watching unobserved as the city rose to greet the day.


End file.
